Honeytrap: Mundill Mahil decided to 'play God' when she recruited the men to carry out the fatal attack on businessman Gagandip Singh

Three people were locked up today over the brutal killing of a TV executive who was beaten and left to die in a burning car.

Gagandip Singh, 21, was lured to medical student Harvinder Shoker's university bedroom in Brighton after she said she wanted to talk to him but it turned out to be a honey trap.

He was knocked unconscious by Harvinder Shoker and Darren Peters then bundled into the boot of a car that was driven to Blackheath, south east London, and set on fire.

Shoker was today sentenced to life and will serve a minimum of 22 years while Peters was given 12 years for manslaughter and Mahil was handed six years for grievous bodliy harm.

It emerged during the trial that Mr Singh tried to rape Mahil six months before he died.

She then confided in Shoker, known as Ravi, about the attempted sex attack, and he recruited Peters to help in the plot against Mr Singh.

He did not know that Shoker and Peters were lying in wait in the bedroom, where he was viciously beaten.

Once Mr Singh was unconscious, they wrapped him in a duvet and bundled him into the boot of the Mercedes he had been driving.

They drove the car to Blackheath where it was set alight with Mr Singh still inside in February last year. Passing sentence, Judge Paul Worsley said: 'This was a tragic case. A promising young man of 21 years was burned to death.'

Speaking to a tearful Mahil, he said:
'He died in appalling circumstances. He was lured by you, Mundill, to
your student house in Brighton where you intended, as the jury have
found, that he suffered really serious harm. You had collected Ravi and
Darren from the railway station for that very purpose.'

After the attempted sex attack, Mr Singh had bombarded Mahil with hundreds of text messages and phone calls.

The judge went on: 'You, Mundill, had
decided that Gagandip Singh should be taught a lesson he would never
forget. Exactly six months to the day before his death in the very
bedroom where he was to be attacked, he had sexually assaulted you.'

Final picture: Gagandip Singh, 21, caught on CCTV in a shop moments before he was murdered. His body was later found in the boot of a burnt out car

Harvinder Shoker (left) was sentenced to life and will serve a minimum of 22 years while Darren Peters (right) was jailed for 12 years for manslaughter

Mahil's brother Harinder had
apparently encouraged her to do something about the assault, because she
did not want to go to the police.

Judge Worsley said: 'Another brother
of yours, Harinder, encouraged you to do something about what had
happened to you. Otherwise nothing would have happened to Gagandip
Singh. That should long remain on his conscience.'

He said Mahil 'showed no pity' when Mr
Singh called out her name as he was attacked, and added: 'You can be
manipulative, vengeful and deceitful.'

'Revenge': Mr Singh was attacked by the two men at Mahil's university home and driven away in a car that they set on fire

Addressing Shoker, he said: 'Besotted by Mundill, you were prepared to do whatever she asked and more.

'One witness spoke of your boast that you were prepared to go to prison for 21 years for the sake of Mundill.'

He said the apprentice electrician had
gone 'far beyond' the planned attack and 'intentionally killed Gagandip
Singh in horrific circumstances'.

Judge Worsley said he was satisfied
that Mr Singh was conscious in the boot of the car when Shoker and
Peters tied his hands with a satnav cable.

Scientific evidence suggested he was unconscious when the car was set on fire.

The judge told Peters that he had not
cared whether Mr Singh was alive when the car was set on fire, and after
the attack had 'callously' withdrawn £300 using Mr Singh's bank card as
his payment for going to Brighton that night.

Mahil, 20, from Chatham,
Kent; Shoker, 20, from Greenwich; and Peters, 20, from Blackheath, were all sent to
young offenders institutions.

Mr Singh was the owner of a new
broadcasting service called Sikh TV, and also helped in his family's
successful packing business.

The court was read a victim impact
statement from his mother Tajinder, which said: 'As a mother, I can't
even begin to find the words to express the great loss I feel. When I
first learned of Gagandip's death, I was completely and utterly broken.'

It went on: 'Since Gagan's death I
fell like my heart has completely broken. They have taken not only a son
from me but a source of joy in my day. My family now consists of only
my daughter Amandip and I. I always think how different our lives could
be with Gagandip still in them.'

She and Mr Singh's sister have attended every day of the Old Bailey trial.

Mrs Singh said of the three
defendants: 'Any one of them could have shown some compassion to my son
and stepped forward and stopped the assault on him.'

His sister said in her statement: 'He
was a constant source of support in my life, emotionally and
practically. Since his death I have felt utterly adrift and often
incapable of coping with the grief of his death.'

Scene of death: Singh was driven to a quiet alley in Blackheath, south east London, where the car he was in was set alight and he was left to die

The family have already suffered the loss of Mr Singh's father, who was murdered in India.

'I have no other siblings and the thought of visiting my father's grave alone makes me feel very lonely,' Miss Singh said.

Describing the ordeal of the trial,
which began on November 28, the day after her birthday, she said: 'I had
to see the three defendants and to listen to their lies made me so
angry, but I had to remain calm and strong for my mum. I tried to
remember Gagandip from the CCTV shown in court.'

She said she saw him 'burnt and unrecognisable lying in the funeral director's'.

'The sight comes to my mind so often
that I feel like I've been robbed of my memories of my brother and I
have to think of the good things in order to push these visions of his
burnt body out of my mind.'

In mitigation, Michael Birnbaum QC said Mahil was of 'extraordinarily good character'.

He said: 'She has had support from some members of her community but she has faced a barrage of vitriolic abuse from others.'

Mr Birnbaum explained that she had
suffered a 'barrage of hate-driven abuse', and that Sikh TV ran a
campaign that she should not get bail at a directions hearing last July.

Pretty: Mahil, left, and Singh, right, met online in 2009 and the 21-year-old man became infatuated with her

Demonstrators gathered outside the Old Bailey and some shouted 'death to Mahil' in Punjabi.

Mr Birnbaum said: 'There will be some
in her community who will always hate her and will regard her, albeit
wrongly, as the girl who got away with murder.'

He told the court she had been the
victim of a serious sexual assault by Mr Singh and criticised a
statement by Detective Superintendent Damian Allain after verdicts were
given, which suggested Mahil had 'portrayed herself as a victim'.

'She was and remains a victim of
sexual abuse both physical and mental and it's astonishing that the
superintendent does not recognise that,' Mr Birnbaum said.

Sallie Bennett-Jenkins QC said of Shoker: 'He is immature, he is naive, he is no intellectual giant.'

She said he had 'true feelings of deep
sympathy' for Mr Singh's family and Mahil had 'held him in her thrall'
and sometimes ridiculed him in private texts.

Richard Barraclough QC, for Peters,
said: 'Darren Peters was not part of the plan to beat or kill Gagandip
Singh. He didn't know when he went to Brighton that Gagandip Singh was
to be beaten or kidnapped or killed.'

He said that Peters was involved only
at the end of the attack when the car was set alight, and had travelled
to Brighton because threats were made against his father.